In the Eyes of a Non-believer
by ForeverPercabeth
Summary: A collection containing the things certain demigods don't believe in and why. Set after the Giant War.
1. Senior Year

**Hello fellow human beings of planet earth.**

**I know what you're thinking. Apparently, I have resurrected from the dead and am still writing. Right now, I'm just sorting through my ideas and trying to see what's fanfiction worthy. Also, this is just a side story but I'm sort of prioritizing the sequel to 'What?' since so many voted for it to be written.**

**Anyways, here you go. Hope you like it. Although I warn you. It's pretty depressing.**

**Disclaimer: PJO does not belong to me.**

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Senior year consists of two words that held the exact same meaning for Percy Jackson. For him, it's just life telling him that he was getting older and he had to move out of his house soon. He may be more than capable of living an independent life, considering how he _is _the son of Poseidon and have experienced many things most people can only imagine.

Plus, that was one of the reasons why his friends questioned him why he didn't believe in the idea of graduation and college preparation. Most demigods don't even live to his age so he should be grateful for surviving all of those wars and quests. Not to mention that he was part of the two great prophecies and had his life threatened more than he can count.

But that did very little to convince him of the truth.

He was well aware of the fact that high school is the best four years of a person's life. Senior year would just put an end to that and train its victims to be robotic people programmed to think of the future and only of the future. He knew his thoughts were pretty childish and that it shouldn't belong to an eighteen year old mind but he couldn't help himself. He had been through plenty of horrible, desperate situations and he deserves a childish thought every now and then.

It was rather depressing to think that just when he's getting parental freedom, he's being caged by so many responsibilities and expectations. Has he ever experienced real freedom? Was he merely a tool for the gods that will only have use when the world is being threatened by powerful forces?

And he's going to be alone soon. He's going to leave his mother's apartment and her protective embrace. He's going to pretend that he's an independent individual and that the real world doesn't scare him. Because he's Percy Jackson. He'll live through it.

Nevertheless, he hated seeing those kinds of people walking through the streets, all those mechanical people living mechanical lives: finish school, go to college, find a job, get married, have children. Those children will just continue that pathetically endless cycle that no one could possibly stop now. Even if someone did try to break it, or at least dent it, they'd just end up failing and wasting the time and energy they need to do something actually worthwhile. Why does fighting the status quo have to be so unusual for society? He had to ask Annabeth later.

He had no choice but to go with the flow and just appreciate the little moments he has as an actual human being, feeling real emotions and being with the people he cares about the most. What's the point in saving the world twice if life would just remain a robotic cycle of robotic people?

So he did try to welcome the worry, excitement, happiness, depression, and curiosity that came with human life. He tried not to think about growing up and taking on responsibilities that had nothing to do with being the leader of Grecian demigods. He's going to experiment with the many misconceptions of freedom there is and try to find his own definition of it. He's going to do stupid things and try to break the endless cycle many call life and just be _human _for once in his lifetime.

He's growing up too fast. When he was fourteen, he held the weight of the sky in his shoulders. At sixteen, he defeated the Titan lord Kronos. At eighteen, he went through hell and put Mother Earth back to sleep. Shouldn't senior year be easy for him to handle? When the others worry about what college they're going to or what career path their taking, he needed to think about humanity and how he was going to save it from destruction again. He had to worry about not dying for the millionth time and do his best so that his friends don't lose their lives as well.

So what if he was a little scared of growing up? Everyone was.

Sometimes, he would just wish that he lived in blissful ignorance. He wished that he was a normal teenage boy with normal parents and normal friends and worrying about normal problems. But that means not meeting Annabeth and she's his entire life.

He's going to suck it all up and lock it all in for her. He's going to ignore his fear of responsibility and sacrifice his freedom for her. The world deserves more Annabeths that it needs Percys. She's going to be building something permanent. He's going to keep on destroying things because that's what he does best. He already has a description of love. He's still working on the meaning of freedom.

And maybe freedom is like love. Maybe he feels free whenever he's with her. Maybe, even when he's locked up in jail or in a monster's dungeon, as long as he's with her he's still soaring like a bird.

Or maybe he shouldn't be thinking about all this depressing things as he wakes up in the morning beside the most beautiful girl in the world. He doesn't need to ponder on the meaning of existence because it doesn't really matter. He's growing up, so what? He's going to college soon, who cares? In reality, he's merely a speck of dust in the atmosphere. He saved the world but no one but the ones that matter really knew that.

He's going to make the most out of senior year. After all, as long as he's with Annabeth Chase, everything would be fine. She's going to have his back through everything and he's going to do the same.

They swore on the River Styx.

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**So, time for the serious part.**

**I'm suffering from identity theft. No, no one's pretending to be me or anything of that sort. I've heard that someone's been copying the storyline of 'What?' and I really want to point out to whoever did that to please stop and use your own ideas. I worked really hard to finish that story and I'm not going to accept that someone's going to take the easy way out.**

**But anyways, I hope you like this one and tell me if you want another chapter. I'm thinking of doing Annabeth and why she doesn't believe in the idea of achievements. If you have any ideas, please review:)**


	2. Politics

**To those who are waiting for the sequel to What?, I am humbly asking for your forgiveness seeing that I haven't updated at all yet. I'm not even going to make some random excuse anymore since that's not fair to any of you.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or HoO**

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Jason Grace was not a big fan of politics, or of political power.

He was Jupiter's son, a prince in his own right, but that didn't mean that he was in favor of being one of those people who control others as if they were puppets. Percy and Nico would question him why he showed absolutely no interest in running for Student Council president when he was more than capable of doing so. As revenge, Jason would ask the son of Poseidon why he wouldn't do the same.

In all honesty, he wasn't the only one who claimed that he was royalty. All the demigods are, in some ways, holding the same title as him. He wasn't the only one who was heir to the throne of something. His cousins were much more powerful than he will ever be and will surely rule their own kingdoms when they were ready (although that's certainly quite an impossible feet considering how immortality wasn't an option for any of them).

Sadly for him, he had no choice but to attend the council meetings with the other senior counselors. He knew how Percy hated to hold these kinds of things because he always had something better do these days so he wouldn't be too happy if Jason skipped out on his hell. If the son of Poseidon had to suffer, everyone had to suffer with him (but that doesn't apply to fighting stupid baddies who never learn their lesson, in which case Percy usually steps in front to shield the entire camp from the multiple painful blows).

Ever since the war with Gaea ended, the Romans and the Greeks came together as one. They kept the name Camp Half-Blood to be more neutral and the gods learned to balance their different personalities. This led to having a leader for both demigod groups, in which he was forced (by Reyna and Frank) to represent everything that was Roman and Percy had to do the same with his half.

Which sort of, kind of, made him a leader. How ironic.

But that wasn't the point. Jason had more than enough experience with leading a group of people. He had done so for most part of his life. The blood of his father _thrived_ in his veins and he was born to be the person everyone looked up to. So why was it that a seventeen year old boy knew better about handling unusual teenagers with strange powers than those lame politicians showing off in TV?

Hell, it wasn't even something to be proud of. He had lived a comfortable life in Camp Jupiter. He was well fed and had everything he could possibly need since he was a child and he never asked for anything more but that didn't mean that he was a stranger to corruption. He had been outside his haven enough times to see that not everyone in the states was living a life like he was. He figured that poverty wouldn't have been so rampant if the leaders did something about it.

But did they? He didn't think so.

If it wasn't bad enough, even the immortals practice injustice more times than he could count in their immortal lives. There were plenty of stories of heroes who were fucked up by random gods who were too selfish and self-centered. In fact, he was best friends with someone who had been the gods' pawn ever since he was born.

Percy Jackson.

He was surprised that his cousin had lived through all those years of 'do this' and 'do that' and 'get me one of my magical singers who just so happened to go haywire'. It was so unfair for him to suffer through all of those quests where he risked his life more times than Leo had been turned down by the female population (and that was saying a lot). And yet he was still more than willing to fight for Olympus and save the world.

It was obvious that everyone admired him for that. How could they not? He deserved to just curse at his godly aunts and uncles for using him as some maid but he didn't do that (not out loud, anyways). He remained obedient and claimed that he didn't do those things for Zeus but for himself and for the people he cared about.

So yeah, maybe leaders were unfair to their people and maybe the people were unfair to judge the leaders but the world might actually be fair if there were people like his almighty yet ever-so-humble cousin.

**Sorry if that didn't make any sense or if it veered off-topic a little. I'm going to use Jason's ADHD as an excuse for that so... yeah. Hope you like it anyways. Please review:)**


	3. Achievements

**I know it's a little short but I promise, this is the shortest chapter of this story. Hope you like it!:)**

**Disclaimer: PJO is not mine to claim**

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Achievement: (n) something that has been done or achieved through effort: a result of hard work. **(Source: Merriam-Webster dictionary)**

That was a word that Annabeth Chase does not believe in.

As a daughter of Athena, she has done plenty of things and rightfully earned her spot as her mother's favorite. But she doesn't particularly like labeling what she did as 'achievements.' She hated it when people ask her what her greatest achievements are because there isn't anything worth taking note of.

Somewhere out there, there's a one year old solving for the reason why 9.8 meters per second squared is gravity or a monkey surviving a trip to Neptune. She saved the world twice, so what? The only people who know about that are those involved in it. Mortals don't scream her name or ask for her autograph when she walks down the street. They prefer kissing the feet of those pop stars and actors who live fake lives and pretend that they're so damn important when they're not. What's the point of defeating the greatest villains if no one saw it happen?

But she honestly didn't care about them and what they think of her. They should just be grateful that she didn't sit back and watch as Gaea or Kronos killed each and every one of them. She's still being bullied in school for being academically proficient. They don't see that as an achievement so why should she? Her name wouldn't be written in History books because, technically, her kind doesn't really exist to humans.

That's what made it so annoying for her. Most mortal teenagers would believe _anything _written in books, even if it was fiction. There were some who waited for their "Prince Charming"s and "Happily Ever After"s and "Vampire boyfriend"s when they knew perfectly well that it wasn't that easy or possible. Oh, and did she mention the fact that fictional characters were praised more than she was? No? Well they were.

Her siblings would even ask her why she was feeling this way, especially when Hubris is her fatal flaw and she should be boasting to the world that she did this and she did that but no one would believe her if she told them that she's one of the seven who sung Mother Earth a lullaby and put her back to sleep. They wouldn't believe her if she told them that she went through Tartarus and survived partly sane. Hell, they barely even believed her when she told them that Percy Jackson was her boyfriend for more than two years now. He, after all, was the closest thing they would ever see to a Greek god and the idea of him and her being together was quite humorous to the ones striving to have his heart.

So if they ask what her greatest achievement was, it wouldn't be her multiple medals and honor streaks, nor would it be her architectural prowess and mathematical genius. She would tell them that it was having Percy Jackson love her deeply and passionately and she had absolutely no idea why but he did.

She would go through all the mocking and teasing and the 'You're not good enough' only to end up in the same place she does every night after Gaea: in his bed. He'd greet her and tell her that he loved her and she'd do the same and they'd just be together through the horrible, vivid nightmares.

That, after all, is what they do best.

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**Review pleasee!**


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